1. Field of the Invention
The present invent relates to maintenance of an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
To stably operate an image forming apparatus, a maintenance engineer periodically visits a customer destination to do maintenance. In the case, the maintenance engineer confirms a value of a counter for measuring the number of times of operation and various types of information of a sensor installed in the image forming apparatus using an interface for service maintenance. The maintenance engineer determines an internal state of the image forming apparatus and deteriorated states of components based on the confirmed information, and sets a most suitable adjustment value and executes an adjustment operation via the interface, to perform adjustment so that the image forming apparatus normally operates.
A content of the maintenance at the customer destination by the maintenance engineer is reported to a development company. The development company totalizes these reports, and examines adjustment means specific to a model and a method for coping with a specific case. As a result, service maintenance information is updated, is opened in a service manual and a website, and is provided to the maintenance engineer. This is repeated to always update information about a coping method most suitable for a case so that the maintenance engineer can optimally cope with the case at the customer destination.
When a case of a malfunction occurs, for example, the maintenance engineer checks the service manual and the website to confirm a method for coping with the malfunction. There is software-based coping such as resetting of an adjustment value in addition to hardware-based coping such as component replacement and mechanical adjustment depending on a content of the malfunction. In the software-based coping, the serviceman refers to a plurality of sensor values and counter values via the interface for service maintenance, and sets the most suitable adjustment value in view of the values.
For such maintenance, a technique for inputting a search key to display a maintenance item corresponding to the search key has been discussed (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-114779).
In recent years, the image forming apparatus has been multifunctionalized, so that optional devices, such as a paper feed deck, a feeder, and a sorter, have been incorporated thereinto. Thus, the respective numbers of sensors and counters in the imaging apparatus and the optional devices may be increased to a total of 1000 or more. The number of maintenance items for confirming or adjusting values of the sensors and the counters are also increased.
Generally, a user needs to confirm a plurality of maintenance items and derive the most suitable adjustment value to do maintenance. More specifically, the user needs to perform work for specifying desired one of an enormous number of maintenance items for all of the plurality of maintenance items to be confirmed when doing maintenance. Even if the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-114779 is used, it takes time and labor for the user to frequently input the search key.